[MMO] WoW: Mists of Pandaria Beta

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Yep, I impulsively bought an annual pass to get Diablo 3 and because I got the WoW itch back. What's new?
Hard to really go over all of it, but I will give the basic rundown of the major changes.

New Race: Pandaren, great new models, very expressive. Not much to say on them.

New Class: Monk, pretty straight forward, though to be honest at 85 they give me a lot of a "Jedi" vibe. They even have a Force Lightening-style attack, a Battle Meditation, and obviously can use various weapons like swords. Still mainly classic monk though (love the flying kick ability). The resource system uses a combination of Energy and Chi. Energy is just like the rogue, and is used by most of the base attacks. Chi is charged up using energy attacks, up to a max of four Chi globes, and does not decay when out of combat. Unlike Holy Power or Combo Points however, Chi attacks don't get more powerful the more Chi you have, instead more powerful attacks will simply use more Chi globes. Combat is usually based around using energy attacks till you build up Chi, unleashing some Chi attacks while the energy recharges, then switch again. It makes for little downtime if done right.

New Talent System: Basically "Spec" and "Talents" have been separated. Choosing a spec now automatically gives you all the skills, bonuses, and masteries that we got in the old talent trees, the ones that allowed you to utilize the spec. The new Talents are skills/passives that come three in a row, 6 rows, each one giving the same form of utility only in a different way (Example, Mage has a defensive tier that gives either a castable Blazing Speed, a new healing shield called Temporal Shield, and the regular old Ice Barrier). Once you pick one skill in a row, the others grey out and can't be chosen, meaning you have to pick what utility will work out better for you. Some like it since it means you can take any skill without suffering performance problems (since most are utility) but others argue it makes choosing talents boring since they don't increase your power as much. I am rather on the fence, I like the idea, but I worry it won't be properly executed.

New Glyphs: Prime Glyphs are gone, we are going back to only Major and Minor glyphs. Major Glyphs alter abilities to do unique things, similar to how they are now, though also taking up some of the old Primes. Minor is much more robust, adding mostly utility or cosmetic changes to the classes. (Example, Druids get a glyph that lets them transform into the old Tree of Life, Paladin's gain a glyph that makes their Avengering Wrath wings cause Slow Fall, and one of my favorites, a warrior glyph that makes it so when my warrior enrages, he lights on fire. Another fun one is a rogue glyph that lets you steal a humanoids appearance when you pick pocket them.)

More Zones: Blizzard learned that having three zones in a row for 82-85 was a real mistake, and gave no room to really keep things interesting. As such they split a few of the larger zones into smaller ones, giving us 7 zones instead of 5. This means we will have at least 2 zones you can level in per level. Also, they admitted that the game was way to linear in quest flow for Cata, so we will see more hubs that can start quests independently of the other towns before it on the questing flow.

New End Game Options: End Game is going to be a lot more interesting. We still have the Dungeons, Heroics, and Raids, with the new LFR system being added to all future raids, making it much more accessible. They also added Challenge Modes and Scenarios, which we have yet to test in the beta. Challenge Modes are basically Heroic 2.0, in which all gear is normalized and the team must work like a well oiled machine to get a good medal for the dungeon, which comes with rewards. With Challenge Modes being the new Heroic, Scenarios go in the other direction. They are basically "mini-dungeons" that will not require a healer or tank, and can be done very quickly for Valor Points. Adding on to all this, they also have Pet Battles, which will play like a weird version of Pokemon, and the Tiller Farm, which will be a daily hub that lets you build your own instanced farm that will give various crafting materials.

New Point System Mechanics: Justice is now going to be the pure point for purchasing dungeon or raid gear, as most of the raid gear will be gotten through the LFR. Valor will instead be utilized as a "upgrading" mechanic. Example, let's say I get a nice helm through Justice Points. I then go gain Valor Points through dungeons, dailies, raids, etc... I can use those points to increase the item level of the helm, bringing it up from the heroic dungeon level all the way to LFR level loot. They said you will not be able to just keep upgrading a low level item till it's more powerful then a legendary, but that you will likely be able to make an item as strong as the next tier above it. No word on if this same system is going to be used for Honor and Conquest.

This is all stuff for MoP. If you are asking about Live, not much changed other then new raids and the LFR. Based on how long ago you left you might get a kick out of Transmog.
 
So, went looking at my WoW account and apparently I'm permanently banned. Which is fascinating because I quit the account about two years ago. No scroll of resurrection for me!
 
Honestly, if you quit you had a reason. All the changes they do probably won't make it enjoyable again. You're not missing out. Consider it time saved.
 
Watched and read up on the Pet Battle system (implemented in an early form on the beta), it's pretty much Pokemon. I'm not being one of those "hur dur Kung Fu Panda" types either, it really is Pokemon.

Not that this is a bad thing, mind you, I think it'll make for a much more entertaining distraction than dailies.
 
That's Zynga levels of blatant ripoff.
I wouldn't call it a ripoff unless Blizzard added the game systems without any consent from Nintendo. I have a feeling Blizzard likely already talked with Nintendo about it long before they even announce the expansion, like when they added Peacebloom vs Zombies with the full support of PopCap games. The rub is about making sure it's not "the whole game" and instead a mini-game, otherwise Blizzard and Nintendo would be competing.
 
I wouldn't call it a ripoff unless Blizzard added the game systems without any consent from Nintendo. I have a feeling Blizzard likely already talked with Nintendo about it long before they even announce the expansion, like when they added Peacebloom vs Zombies with the full support of PopCap games. The rub is about making sure it's not "the whole game" and instead a mini-game, otherwise Blizzard and Nintendo would be competing.
It couldn't be less of a rip off if they named it "Warkemon"
 
Well let's be honest here, it basically is a ripoff in the same vein that Plants VS. Zombies minigame was. Or the 3D Joust daily in Hyjal. Or the countless other pop culture references/quests littered throughout WoW. However, if you tried that P vs. Z quest it wasn't anywhere near as fun as the real game, and didn't play nearly as smooth as it had to work within the confines of another game's script/programming. The Joust daily, to me, is crazy frustrating (sort of like the real Joust, fancy that).

Odds are this Wow-emon thing will be the same, just with more polish as it's one of the selling point of the expansion so far. I can see it being entertaining but I'm willing to bet it won't be anywhere near as fun as plain old Pokemon, so I can't imagine Nintendo's going to care at all (they'd have done something by now if they did).
 
To be even more fair, there's nothing particularly unique about Pokemon that hasn't been done a zillion times before either.
 
That sounds more like Monster Rancher to me, though in the end it's all the same basic idea I guess.

Back OT, it's really just Monks and the art of the new areas keeping me interested in the xpac, I hope I get an invite at some point down the line to try out the class.
 
Who cares if it's a rip-off? Just out of curiosity? How does it make a difference if it's enjoyable to play in game and keeps some from entering the boredom doldrums?

Why am I defending this so much? Because I plan on making a killing selling combat pets.
 
Yeah, Engineers who can make those mini Fel Reavers and such are going to make some goooooood gold, I bet. Not to mention anyone who feels like farming the rare companions.
 
I'm pretty bummed now that I didn't get a Mini-Thor after all.

One thing I'm not on board with the system so far is the fact that you can gain xp from challenging other players. Way too open for abuse.
 
From what I saw though it was not that much. Someone really out to abuse the system would be better off just making a farm bot.
 
From what I saw though it was not that much. Someone really out to abuse the system would be better off just making a farm bot.
Except the whole, you know, you get xp if you win, nothing if you lose, have a bot set up to play against someone all night every night, sell lvl 99 pets and crash the economy. No biggie.
 
Except the whole, you know, you get xp if you win, nothing if you lose, have a bot set up to play against someone all night every night, sell lvl 99 pets and crash the economy. No biggie.
I see what you mean now, you meant leveling pets and selling them. To be honest I think I missed where they said you can sell "pre-leveled" pets, as I swore you could buy unique pets or wild pets, but you would always have to level them yourself once you "learned" the pet, otherwise some of those achievements are going to be pretty easy for someone with enough gold. Can you point out where they mentioned the ability to buy pre-leveled ones?

Also pretty sure the max level is 25. ;)
 
I'd have to go through the Blizzcon panels but they specifically said you could level and trade.

They DID say that Unique pets weren't going to be tradeable/sellable in the most recent Ghostcrawler interview though. So stuff like Blizzcon/CE pets won't be tradeable.
 
I will have to go through the panels again sometime, I think they said it was an idea, but I could have swore they didn't mention it as a for certain. That might just be my memory being bad though.

In the end, a lot of it will depend on how long it will take to even level the pets. I don't think they are going to make it as difficult as leveling a character, they even have an achievement for leveling 75 pets to 25. If the pet leveling takes, like, two weeks, you might not see as much of a market for anything other then rare ones, plus more saturation of ones being sold will bring down the price.
 
Still, a silly thing to allow through. Zero reason to allow xp duels between players. Give another incentive, not sure what, but somethingelse.
 
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